This is a part of a series of posts written by entrepreneurs of the Fall 2020 Business Accelerator cohort for EforAll Cape Cod.
by Amar Rambhadjan of Breezy Beats
This week, we covered website and SEO basics with Dale Shadbegian, from Cape & Plymouth Business. Dale is an expert in website and SEO development and strategies and shared many great insights with the cohort.
I started my business online, so naturally, my priority was to optimize the website as much as possible. There is no point in having a website if no one is able to see it or if it just looks bad. Wouldn’t you love to increase the number of visitors on your website and reach more potential customers? There are simple ways to accomplish this and they are all based on using psychological tips and tricks to entice users to stay on your site. Throughout the class, Dale shared some very impressive facts and two of them immediately caught my attention. He mentioned that visitors decide in half of a second whether they are going to stay or leave your website and that over 88% of people will google your website before making a purchase. Knowing such powerful statistics proves the importance of implementing the right strategies to optimize your website.
Dale shared with us the steps to creating an effective website. Including, finding a domain provider, registering your website url, hosting your website, and the importance of finding a website provider with a mobile-friendly platform. He discussed one of the most crucial factors in developing your website, the design. The design includes technical design and aesthetic design. Technical design involves thinking like a grid, from left to right, top to bottom, so you can establish a sense of flow. Aesthetic design involves maintaining consistency throughout your site, using high-quality images, using fonts and colors that agree for easy reading and utilizing blank space. Dale also mentioned the importance of creating back-ups of your website in the event of hackers and scammers attempting to corrupt your website.
We also discussed SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the integral role it plays in increasing the visibility of your website through search algorithms. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc, use algorithms to calculate the most relevant content that should be displayed when a user enters a keyword in an internet search. Google being the most popular search engine controls much of what we see based on their algorithm and how well optimized your site is. Without a proper SEO strategy, a website will suffer from poor search ranking compared to other sites with competing keywords. Creating a Google My Business account is also important so your business can achieve visibility on Google and Google Maps.
I learned valuable insights from Dale’s experience in website and SEO development. This week’s class proved the importance of understanding this concept and implementing the strategies we learned in our businesses. Nowadays, there is probably nothing more important than having an optimized website for your business. I know for me, personally, it has been the backbone of my business and I will definitely take what I have learned in class and apply it. Thank you Dale for sharing this valuable information with us!
Editor’s Note: Applications are now open for the Spring 2021 Business Accelerator Program with EforAll Cape Cod.
